


To Go Away on a Summer's Day

by SansasStarks



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Basically a sea of Sansa and Arya arguin, Gen, Roadtrip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:18:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SansasStarks/pseuds/SansasStarks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ned and Cat Stark tell their kids that their holiday in Greece will be preceded by a 5 day car journey, the kids aren't particularly enthusiastic about spending so much time in so confined a space.</p><p>However, over the course of the journey, the family realises how lucky they are to have each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Go Away on a Summer's Day

“Is everything in the car?” sighed the tall auburn haired woman, arms crossed. “I wanted us to be on the road two hours ago!”  
“Everything but the kids,” chuckled her husband, who had just shut the bulging boot door. The woman sighed again.  
“Kids! We’re LEAVING!” she shouted at the top of her voice.  
Thirty seconds later, the sound of a stampede came down the path from the large white house, and soon after six children of a range of ages came bursting through the gate. Nothing inspired fear like Catelyn Stark shouting at the top of her voice.  
The huge 8-seat Volkswagen van gradually filled up, Ned and Catelyn up front, Arya and Sansa in the middle row, either side of Rickon, the youngest in the family and their three eldest sons: Jon, Robb and Bran in the back row, and soon they were away, ready (or not) to be cramped in a car with their nearest and dearest for five days, going from the mild and wet of Glasgow to the hot and dry of Southern Greece.  
“We’re driving to Greece? Are you serious? That would take, like, a month or something.”  
“Don’t be stupid, Arya, it wouldn’t take a month. Just a few weeks… right?”  
“Shut up, Sansa.”  
“No, you shut up.”  
“Both of you shut up.”  
“Shut up, Robb.”  
The reaction to the announcement was exactly what Ned expected it to be, but possibly worse.  
“Yes, we’re driving to Greece.” It was the third time he’d said this, battling against the incredulous kids.  
“Why?” said Sansa and Arya together, a brief moment of unity broken by the identical glare on both their faces, as if they were disgusted by the mere idea of agreeing with each other over anything.  
“Well, it’ll be an adventure! It’ll mean we’ll get to see all the countries in between, and having a car with us will mean we can go on days out when we’re in Greece. We are going to be there for three weeks, we won’t want to be in the same place all the time.”  
“How long will it take to get there? And what countries are we going through?” asked Arya, maybe warming to the idea slightly. The boys all seemed relatively calm about it, too.  
“It’ll take 5 days, probably, and we’re going through the heart of Europe, we’ll see all sorts.”  
“Yeah, but what actual countries?” Arya was determined.  
“Will we go through Italy?” asked Sansa, excitedly.  
“No, we’re not going through Italy, sorry,” answered Ned. Arya snorted and Sansa shot her an angry look, which only made Arya laugh. Ned had figured out why Cat had let him tell the kids about the trip, still three months away.  
“The idea is we go down to Dover and cross the Channel into France…”  
The months that followed were filled with quiet excitement for the kids and stressful organisation for the parents. At the beginning of July, quiet excitement had turned into loud excitement. Jon and Robb had finished their A-Levels in mid-June, and Sansa had finished her GCSEs at the same time. The rest of the kids were still at school but were at the winding down phase, and all the talk was about Greece.  
Bran had got Catelyn to buy him a book about the history of Greece, meaning that every half an hour he’d travel around the house telling everyone the newest and most interesting fact he found.  
Rickon looked permanently happy, as a six-year-old is wont to do if they know things are going their way. When asked what he was happy about, he usually shouted “GREECE!” with a big grin on his face.  
Finally, the final week before the journey started arrived, and the parents stress started moving by osmosis onto the kids. Packing was done by all, and even though the summer holidays had technically begun, none of the kids had any time to spend with friends as they rushed to complete tasks set by their parents, usually while Rickon followed and asked what they were doing and why they were doing it. A reply of “Greece” usually sent him away, giving the busy Stark a knowing nod before he went.  
The day of the trip finally came, and bags were dumped in the hallway for Ned to carry to the car, muttering all the way about his unhelpful children. The children were hiding, particularly from an agitated Catelyn, who was trying to rush them because she wanted to spend the night in a certain French town that she’d visited in her youth but hadn’t been to since, and Google had told her that it was over 10 hours’ drive.  
They did eventually get going, although the motorways of southern Scotland were full of people travelling south, meaning the going was initially slow. The car was mostly quiet, with only the odd bit of conversation disturbing the silence of the car. Rickon had fallen asleep and was leaning on Sansa (who was probably his favourite member of the family), and Bran was reading his book about Greece. The rest of the family were looking out of their respective windows or phones.  
“Can we listen to music?” asked Sansa, tired of the awkward silence.  
“Sure, I’ll turn the radio on,” answered Ned, although Sansa had passed one of her CDs to the front of the car to play and told him to play that instead.  
“Morning’s come, you’ve watched the red sun rise,” blared the car’s speakers, along with a very out of tune Sansa. Arya made a face of disgust.  
“If she can have this CD then I get to pick the next one.”  
“Oh my God, Arya, I am not going to listen to Evan-scene.”  
“Evan-scene? They’re called Evanescence and they're better than anything you listen to, Sansa. Who even is this, Vampire Monkeys?”  
“Both of you shut up!” This was Jon, in a rare moment of not being the most mild-mannered person on earth. It worked, and the girls did shut up, although they shot more dirty looks at each other.  
“Did you know that in Greece, Easter and Christmas are at slightly different times?”  
“Bran we don’t care!”  
“Wait that sounds cool, Bran, why is that?”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading the first chapter of my new fic. The title is a lyric from Vampire Weekend's 'Holiday' and the lyrics sung by Sansa in the car is the opening line of Vampire Weekend's 'Obvious Bicycle'. I'll probably try to keep any more VW references to myself!


End file.
